


Under the Shower Spray

by FridaysAt9



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Anger, Angst, Brunette Dana Scully, Cuddles, Doctor Scully, F/M, Mulder with a beard, On the Run, Pain, Post-Season 9 (X-Files), Pre-The X-Files: I Want To Believe (2008), Sadness, Showers, The Unremarkable House (X-Files)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22987906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FridaysAt9/pseuds/FridaysAt9
Summary: A series of snapshots of Mulder and Scully's time on the run. Focuses on the mix of emotions they both deal with while trying to maintain their relationship. Not chronological, just moments. Warning, full of angst and pain.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 25
Kudos: 84





	1. Under the Shower Spray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've been on the run for weeks, maybe a month, and it is starting to wear on Scully. She thinks about everything she misses while trying not to let the darkness consume her. Can Mulder help?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My family is planning an upcoming long distance move and rather than journaling or something to get out my feelings, I thought I would just pour it into a fic. We often hear about the darkness that finds Mulder, but what was Scully dealing with being away from everyone and everything familiar. Warning, might be painful.
> 
> Thanks to my partner in fic erosanderis!

She would follow him anywhere. That had been the case from day one. There was some invisible thread that drew her to him no matter how ridiculous his theories. It didn’t matter if she had to take a redeye to who knows where or if they spent days in the car with nothing but highway and corn fields for miles on end. Wherever he went, she would follow.

When the world turned upside down and he was gone and Agent Dogget was in his place, when she grew a child, raised him so briefly and gave him away, when she found him dead only to discover she had been wrong, she knew she would no longer follow, but rather do everything in her power to be with him, no matter the cost. 

He had to run away so she had to go with him. She was leaving it all, but she would never leave his side. They had each other, and that was what mattered. 

But as time went by, motel room after motel room, a box of hair dye, and clothes that weren’t their style, a darkness fell over her, burying her in her own thoughts, separating her from him. She knew that he was struggling too, but she didn’t want to add to his burden and she was afraid to share her own. She was afraid that if she voiced what was going through her head it would consume her– the sadness, the longing, the resentment and the desire. A desire for things to change or begin again as they once were. To be able to follow new paths instead of the ones they had chosen. 

“Are you scared?” Mulder asked one night while they stood silently together in the shower. They washed themselves and each other without speaking, tied up in their own thoughts. Scully felt safe under the shower head because its drops masked her tears. 

“Scared is not the emotion I am dealing with.”

He stared at her blankly. He was usually so in tune to all of her feelings but found himself at a loss as the days and weeks wore on. He couldn’t predict her moves or pull her out of herself. All of his tactics for making her smile fell flat. They barely touched when they slept at night, staying to their own sides of the bed, no longer waking entangled in each other’s arms. 

“I left everything Mulder,” she said, forcing herself to get the words out. It was time to air it all. 

“We left everything,” he said in response with the muscles in his jaw clenching and his eyes boring into her own. 

She turned her back to him, facing the stream of water putting her face in her hands. “I know,” she said through her fingers, voice muffled. “I know we both walked away from our lives. It’s just…” 

She couldn’t say it because it sounded mean. She wanted to say she had more to lose. Unlike him, she actually talked to people in the FBI building and while she couldn’t consider them friends, the loss of all those acquaintances, those people, hurt more than she thought it would. She had already lost so much. Her sister. Her father. The children she was never supposed to have. She thought she could follow Mulder and they would be okay together, just the two of them, but losing the few things that she had left made her feel like she was floating in a lake with no bottom and no shores on which she could drag her way out. 

She missed the muggy heat of DC. Her favorite coffee shop. Her mother. She missed her mother like a diver misses air. She could barely find her way out of bed in the morning having gone weeks without hearing her voice on the other end of a phone conversation. 

She missed the way the afternoon light streamed in the windows of her apartment, leaving a sunny square on the floor by the coffee table. She missed the pizza guy who had been delivering food to her for years, sharing pleasant and comfortable conversations whenever she ordered. 

She wondered if her plants were dead and if anyone had been to her apartment to take care of the dirty laundry in the hamper in her closet. She hadn’t even taken out the trash before she left. 

The trees looked different here. And the sky. And the air felt different on her skin than it had at home. They had been everywhere and nowhere since they started this journey. Nothing felt like home. She and Mulder had traveled all across the country during their time on the X-files, but this was so different. Everything was new and unfamiliar, like being on vacation, but with no escape. 

She missed her church and her wardrobe and her bed. She missed Dogget and Reyes and Skinner. She missed their office with its dust and clutter and the heat and air conditioning that never quite worked right. She even missed the hours she had spent on the endless autopsies, mysterious, grizzly or otherwise. 

It killed her when she saw people walking down the street, groups of friends or families. People sitting together in restaurants or cafes, talking and laughing. Sharing their experiences. This was no longer her experience. She wasn’t a part of that world anymore. She didn’t have people to share her life with. They were all gone, not only out of reach, but also out of contact. 

It wasn’t the same as when she moved from town to town as a military child. This was completely severing ties with no immediate chance for repair.

This wasn’t supposed to be a part of her story, their story. She had never planned to move away and live her days through uncertainty.

And it wasn’t all sadness that spun inside her. There was anger too, and that is what scared her. If it wasn’t for his stupid quest. His unyielding need to seek the truth. If he had just had a normal job somewhere. An accountant maybe. If she hadn’t left medicine. If she hadn’t been assigned to him. 

But then where would her life be?

He wasn’t with them, but stepping foot into that basement office and meeting Mulder had ultimately led to William’s coming to be. God willing he was a healthy and happy baby, out there somewhere with parents who showered him with love and affection. 

But even then, with her gratitude for the child that they had created together, it was the X-files and Mulder’s search that took him away from her. Or it was her weakness and her failure at keeping him safe. Nothing in her life had gone the way she had planned. Everything had been destroyed, at every turn. She buried herself in the back and forth of her choices, angry at the ones she had made to bring her here. What if she had done better at protecting William… What if Mulder had chosen them over everything else… What if they had only fucking quit the FBI and ran away long ago.

She sighed but didn’t say anything, because screaming or yelling wouldn’t make any difference. Mulder put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. 

“Come here.”

He took her into his arms, her cheek resting on his wet chest, her head fitting under his chin where it always had. Her breathing fell into pace with his. His hands rubbed her back and hers rubbed his. None of it took any thought, it was just them.

“I love you Scully,” he said, continuing to rub small circles along her back, “but you don’t have to stay. You didn’t do anything wrong. I am the one they are looking for. I have punished you enough in our time together. I don’t want this to be another time I pulled you from the life you could have had.”

“What would you do without me?” she asked, with tears running down her cheeks. She wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart from the shower water if it weren’t for their salty taste when they hit her lips. 

“Wallow.”

“Wallow?” she asked him back. 

“I would spend my days thinking about all the things I had done wrong,” he explained, smoothing down her hair with one hand while holding her close to him with the other. “The times I had let you down. The way that I couldn’t keep you safe. I would think about how waking up alone was the most depressing thing in the world.”

“You know you wouldn’t sleep,” she said with a smirk on her lips, a contrast to her tear-filled eyes and stuffed up nose. 

“You’re probably right,” he said a sad, small laugh. He pulled back and took her face in his hands. “Scully, there’s no one I would trust to do this with me. There is no one I would want to do this with me, but I can’t keep you here if it is destroying what makes you the passionate, confident, lively woman you are.”

He paused, but his eyes never left her own. 

“Scully, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make you happy or how to fix any of this, but when I’m up in the middle of the night, thinking it all through, the same answer comes up time and time again. If you leave now, you can start again. You can be free of all this. Free of me.”

Her tears weren’t hidden anymore, and she was sure her nose was red. Despite the swirl of feelings that consumed her, a half a smile crossed her lips and she looked down at Mulder’s large feet, framing her own small ones. 

“Thank you.”

Mulder just looked at her with his eyebrows asking the question for him, and moved his hands to her hips. She ran her own up and down his arms. 

“Thank you for allowing me to choose,” she said. “Thank you for listening and wanting what’s best for us. For me.”

“Scully, you’re my world,” he said, taking her hand and kissing her knuckles. “I only ever want what’s best for you.”

“I’m not okay, Mulder,” she said, “and I don’t think I am going to be okay for a long time.”

“I’m so sorry, Scully.”

“No, Mulder,” she said, taking his hands in her own. “This choice was mine. I know I didn’t need to follow you, but I can’t imagine my life any other way. As hard as this is, choosing you has always been the right choice.”

He pulled her into his arms again, a bear hug of equal parts comfort and relief. 

“I can’t promise that I will be happy all the time,” she told him, snuggling her face into his soft chest hair.

“Don’t keep it inside, Scully,” he told her. “Tell me all of it. Anything that you need. It’s you and me against the world.”

“Do you think we’ll run forever?” she asked, reaching behind her to turn the knob a little bit warmer. 

“No, Scully,” he said. “One day we will get a house. We will stay in one place and live a normal life. We’ll invite your mom over for dinner and we’ll walk through the mall holding hands without worrying who might see us.”

“Can we get a dog?” she asked since he seemed to be in a charitable mood. 

“If you must,” he answered and kissed the top of her head. “I would do anything for you, Scully.”

“I love you Mulder.”

“I love you too,” he said. 

“Let’s get out of here.”


	2. Power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the darkness of the predawn night, Scully wonders at how the power has shifted in their relationship while they've been on the run, erasing more and more of Dana Scully each day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote Under the Shower Spray as a stand alone to work through some angst I was experiencing in my own life. I hadn't intended to go any further, but here I am with another "on the run" moment. I always think how painful the experience must have been, especially in the quiet moments. 
> 
> Feedback always (hugely) appreciated. Enjoy!

Sometimes she thought about power. In every relationship, be it parent and child, teacher and student, husband and wife, there is a distribution of power. It wasn’t always the same, shifting from time to time or from situation to situation, but it was always there. 

It was very clear in some couples who held the power, who was in control, and who was the one who followed. 

Mulder and Scully had always had a partnership. They were two parts of the same whole. Each picked up where the other left off. They often knew what the other was thinking and could communicate endless amounts of information without a single word passing between them. In a lot of ways they had the perfect relationship, full of balance and trust.

Except for when they didn’t.

When they were cuddling on the couch watching a movie, or laughing and bickering while driving in the car, it was easy to see how perfectly suited they were for each other, but in the dark nights before the first light of dawn started to force its way through the blinds, Scully felt the imbalance. It sent her spiraling into her own thoughts, regrets and concerns.

The very nature of their relationship was based in Mulder’s obsessions and quest. Scully was assigned to him, to his work, which set them on the course that brought them to this seedy hotel, running from the government. His quest to find his sister led to her abduction, to the death of her sister, the creation and death of Emily, the birth of their son… It led to their friendship and love. That quest pulled her away from her career, her family. It led to her dark brown hair, her fatigued body and her restless mind.

Of course she had been a willing participant at nearly every turn, fluke man notwithstanding, and she didn’t regret her choice to stay by his side. The things she had seen, the life she had had was thanks to their time together on the X-files, and as far as she was concerned, and she hoped he would agree, the good far outweighed the bad. 

But when she was feeling down, like tonight, covered in sticky sweat thanks to a poorly functioning air conditioner window unit, she couldn’t help but fixate on the fact that their whole lives were determined by him. The man who slept soundly next to her, a rarity but one that no longer brought her comfort, had pulled her from her life and threw her into this endless transient road trip. This week she was Michelle, a woman who had never had a career and often found herself working in convenience stores. Next week who would she be? Maureen from Detroit? Jennifer the office assistant with a love of cats and crossword puzzles?

She stayed by his side as her identity was erased. She became a different person in each town they wound up in while he remained the same, Fox Mulder, man on the run, full of doomsday ravings, paranoia and panic. He was in hiding, but he was still himself while Dana Scully drifted further and further away. 

Their life was about him. They searched because of him. They investigated because of him. They ran because of him. 

Where was her power? She didn’t decide where they went. She didn’t decide what they would do. She couldn’t make the choice to see her mother. She couldn’t follow her interests, her passion, her career. She couldn’t teach. She couldn’t practice medicine. 

Her life had been reduced to following Mulder. Following Mulder and surviving. 

She dreamt of the ability to make a choice, any choice— where they would go, where they would live. A choice larger than what shirt to wear or what takeout to order. 

She wanted to be in charge of decorating a house. She wanted a dog. She wanted Mulder to put her needs first. 

She sighed into the night because she knew he did what he could, worshiping her body, making her tea, washing her long brown tresses, eating salad even though he hated it. 

But she wondered how she had let the pendulum swing so far towards him and so far from herself. 

She dreamed of a day when they were free to live separate lives together. Where they both had worth and value and importance. Where the power was spread and they could be the partners they had once been. 

When Mulder could go outside. When life could move forward rather than spin in place. 

When her hair was red.


	3. Safe Haven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The unremarkable house is the only place where Mulder can be free. While danger lurks in the world outside, Mulder is safe inside those four walls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quarantine is getting to me. I was watching my daughter sitting in the grass in our backyard and I thought how safe and free she looked inside of our fenced space. No masks, no virus, no protests or cops. Just a little girl in the grass.
> 
> As with the rest of this series, I am channeling all of my emotional junk into Mulder and Scully for a little catharsis. I hope you can find some too. 
> 
> Stay safe.

The outside world was a scary place. It was filled with monsters and men, men who had told them lies, who wanted to destroy the human race to save their own asses. 

Outside there were people who may recognize him, people who may know who he was, who he was running from. 

Scully was free to leave the house to go to the store, find a job, meet with her mother, but as far as the world was concerned, Mulder no longer existed. He was missing, on the run somewhere, and no one knew exactly what had happened to him. Including Scully. 

The world saw Scully as a former FBI agent who had fled with her partner turned lover only to return on her own with no knowledge of his whereabouts. No one knew what had happened between them, just that she was back and he wasn’t. And the assurance she wasn’t going to ever explain it to them.

They could see that she was changed without his presence. In contrast to her former apartment, she had purchased a small, ramshackle house off the beaten path, away from the city. Her name alone was on the lease, a whole house with a large piece of property in seclusion all to herself. No one knew where exactly it was, and no one was invited over. She resumed a semblance of normalcy, but her home remained a mystery. The house being so unlike anything she would have had in the past only strengthened the talk of what must have happened to her while she was away.

What no one knew, what no one was allowed to know, was that the unremarkable house under Dana Scully’s name was Mulder’s safe haven. His whole life now took place within those four walls. From the moment he woke up, tangled in their bed, her long hair splayed across his chest, he remained in that house, safe from the outside world. 

Should he ever venture off their property, he needed a disguise, a hat and glasses working with his thick beard to obscure his face, hoping to keep himself unrecognizable to anyone who would be able to identify him. He had to take caution. He had to plan his outing in advance, thinking ahead of all the possible problems he could face. He needed to have cash on hand and would stay as close to the house as he could since he no longer carried a cell phone with him for fear of being tracked.

But when he was in that house, he was safe. He was free. He could stay in bed until noon followed by a shower with the windows open. He could cook an elaborate dinner for the two of them or settle for a peanut butter sandwich when he was on his own. He could waste the day away in his office, searching for the truth, making mental connections, looking for facts to appease his hypercritical partner. 

In that house, he could welcome Scully home from wherever she had been, take her in his arms and never let her go. They would make love, pushing the pillows and blankets from their bed during their passion. They would take long, hot showers, exploring each other’s bodies. They would cuddle on the couch, sheltered from the dangers that lurked beyond their windows. 

At night, they would sit outside on the porch, the darkness settling their worries of him being seen, and talk about a future where they could be together anywhere but there. They were grateful for the safety their house provided him, but they were ready to see more of the world, to travel. They wanted to be somewhere warm with a different view than the roads they had zigzagged when they hadn’t been able to settle down. But they also wanted something as simple as walking down a street that was full of people, with their faces unobstructed and their hands interlaced. 

On those nights, Mulder would surround her body from behind while they sat on the steps to their house, wrapping his arms around her, and holding her tight. He would place soft kisses in her hair and thank her for anything and everything he could think of. He would make her promises and assurances. 

They would be together forever. They would have a normal life one day. 

They would venture out of the remarkable house.


	4. Morning Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully always appreciated her alone time, but now she can't sleep without Mulder beside her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never intended this to become a multi-chapter work, but I find life in quarantine inspiring more moments in Mulder and Scully's lives on the run. Sometimes it is hard to spend all your time with another person, even if they are your one in 5 billion. 
> 
> Thanks to erosanreris for talking this one through with me! 
> 
> Comments welcome and appreciated :)

She had gotten used to his presence beside her, his large body venturing in sleep from his side to her own. He gave off heat, and struggled against the blankets during dreams. He snored when he was overtired and he breathed in her face should they happen to end up facing each other. But after all the years she had spent alone in her bed at night, Scully had grown accustomed to sharing all of her spaces with Mulder. 

The invasion had started when they were just barely partners. He would stand well within her personal space. His sunflower seed shells would find their way into her jacket pockets. He made himself at home in her hotel rooms and moved through her apartment as if he was just as comfortable there as he was in his own. 

Their relationship hadn’t developed along a path of normalcy. They were partners, then friends, before becoming each other’s worlds. They had allowed themselves to explore a deeper relationship, even if they had been unable to put labels on it or admit to each other what it really meant. And then he was gone and she was pregnant. He was back and she was a mother. And then everything was gone. 

And now? Now they had nothing but each other, and her bed was his. His long legs wrapped around hers. Her feet tucked into his bent knees. His hands would slide along her waist as she ran her thumbs under the elastic of his boxers. 

Since they had left the world behind, their sleep had become perfectly choreographed. Except when it wasn’t.

Scully rolled over and looked at the empty second half of the apartment bed. No pillow, no Mulder. They had been on the run for nearly six months and had been renting this small and dingy apartment in a suburb of a suburb for the past two weeks. It wasn’t home, it didn’t feel like home, but there was a bed and a shower. A couch and a functional kitchen. And they had each other. 

Scully dozed and woke, still feeling the weight of the empty space next to her. Ever since the start of their partnership, much of their time was spent together, even more so as the years went on, but their individual lives had stayed intact. She had her own apartment. She would do an autopsy while he interviewed a suspect. She would visit her mother, or go to the grocery store. He would run. 

Now, they had nothing but each other. They were together in the car, driving from place to place. They were together in every hotel room, trailer and apartment they stayed in. They rarely had access to a bathtub and usually showered together. 

Most of the time, being with her other half, her one in five billion, was everything she wanted, the place she belonged, and the choice she was happy she had made, but sometimes, when they were tired and frustrated, it all became too much. When the sound of the sunflower seeds against his teeth was like a freight train. When his huge shoes were left in front of the door, causing her to trip every time she walked in. 

He would talk to fill the silence and wear the same t-shirt for days on end and he would always order burgers, no matter where their food came from. Under normal circumstances, these were just Mulder-isms, things that made him who he was and things that didn’t ever really bother Scully, but in a bottle, unable to ever be away from each other for more than maybe an hour or two at a time, everything had been thrown under a microscope. Every sound, every look, was heightened and magnified. 

The day had started as a lazy Saturday with no plans and had morphed into both of them yelling at the other, their argument spiraling due to lack of true substance, until they were flinging insults at one another, aiming to hurt. It had nothing to do with the fact that Mulder insisted on putting his feet on the coffee table and had spilled her tea on the book that she had left nearby. It wasn’t about the messes he left or the displeased face she wore so often that he couldn’t stand. 

It was about this apartment and their life on the run. They were frustrated and missing a sense of purpose. They only had each other. They were stuck with each other. They were driving each other up a wall and had no one else to vent to or lash out at. They were each other’s everything, in both the good and the bad. 

Scully had fallen asleep and woke up with a sore back, likely from sleeping stiffly, avoiding the other side of the bed. She let out a sigh and rolled over to face the empty space and the clock beyond it. 4:45 and she didn’t feel at all rested. 

Mulder was probably in the other room wide awake on the couch. She wanted to go apologize, but she was tired, both physically and emotionally. She felt stubborn and selfish, but she didn’t want to be the one to reach out first. She wanted a reminder that he wanted her there. She didn’t want to rehash everything or talk about what was bothering them. She just wanted to feel safe and protected. Wanted and loved. 

A tear dripped down her cheek and she fell back into a restless sleep. 

She heard a creak that pulled her from her slumber. The room was full of early morning light streaming in through plastic Vantian blinds. She turned towards the door and saw Mulder standing a few feet away from the bed, pillow in hand. 

“Hi,” she said, without moving from her spot. 

“Hi.”

Mulder placed his pillow in its spot, pulled back the covers, and slid into the bed next to her. Scully rolled onto her side, facing away from him, not because she was still angry, but because she was ready to sleep peacefully. 

Mulder’s large hand found her hip and pulled her back towards him, tucking her in up against his chest, her skin hot from being under the blankets and his cool from walking through the apartment. 

They didn’t speak. Mulder just nuzzled his face into her hair and let out a content sigh before they both fell back to sleep.


	5. Self-Absorbed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully's night shifts at the hospital feel like a punishment to Mulder while he sleeps alone in their bed in the unremarkable house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little more angst for the time period before I Want to Believe. I know they were a couple in the movie, but with Mulder unable to be free, that time period had to be full of stress and heavy emotions. I don't doubt there were happy times, but this is all about their struggles. 
> 
> Thanks for reading. Feedback always HUGELY appreciated.

“I don’t even know if you want to be here anymore!”

“You know I do!”

“I don’t!” Mulder yells as he stands shirtless in his pajama pants while Scully stands across from him, next to the front door, in her shoes and jacket, briefcase in hand. He gestures to the clutter around him. “I feel like you are punishing me for not giving up on all this.”

Scully lets out a mirthless laugh. “Punishing you?” She chuckles again in disbelief. “You are so self-absorbed.”

The look on her face and the tone of her voice set Mulder’s blood on fire. There was a time when he could be sure that no matter the disagreement, no matter how angry she was at him, that she would stay by his side. She would continue their work, follow his lead, move forward on their quest, but now? Now every disagreement and every argument sent him into a panic, sure that this time she would leave him for good. 

“Just go,” he says and turns to walk back to his office. He hears the door slam. 

It’s the third night shift she has worked this week. She didn’t take a night job at the hospital. At no time was this part of her schedule or part of their lives, but lately, her nights are spent with patients instead of him. 

Sleeping alone has left him cranky with a sore back from trying to stay on his own side of the bed to spite her, should she get home and check in on him before he wakes, which she never does. His sleep is restless as his mind plays over their last spat. He can never get comfortable. He wants to scream and punch a wall. He hates her and he wants to hold her close. 

When he wakes she is there, drinking tea in the kitchen, making herself a small meal before she takes her turn in their bed. Their conversations are short, bordering on pleasant, but they doge the issues and never dig too deep. They typically share one soft peck of a kiss for the morning, and maybe another before she leaves again the next time. It feels like every day they are taking steps further and further away from each other, building the gap. 

Self-absorbed, he thinks. The word rolls through his mind and stabs into his heart like a dagger. He is exactly who he has always been. Nothing about him has changed. It is only the environment that is different. Trapped in this tiny house, unable to leave, he has nothing to keep his mind busy other than searching for answers. Finding proof that there isn’t a big dead end out there waiting for them when the world ceases to exist as they’ve always known it. 

And without her here, when he is left alone, without a job, without coworkers and family to occupy his time, he feels the pull to the questions that are still unanswered even stronger than before. 

He has nothing for himself other than those questions. And her. But she has everything. She has a purpose and a life. She controls their house, making sure to get all the groceries that they should have. She keeps things clean in the way that she prefers. She keeps a work schedule that works for her. And who’s the one who is self-absorbed?

Maybe he’s wrong, but her night shifts do feel like a punishment to him. She volunteers for those shifts and they keep her out of their bed at night and remove her from their days together while she catches up on her sleep. She doesn’t have to see him, she doesn’t have to talk. He can work on whatever keeps him busy in his office and she doesn’t need to be a part of his life. 

Mulder brushes his teeth and climbs into bed, careful to leave her side of the blanket pulled to the top and her pillow standing tall up against the headboard in case tomorrow is the day that she looks in on him when she gets home. He thinks about calling her, sending her a text, but he doesn’t want to say sorry. He’s the one who always says sorry, though she would probably say the opposite. 

He’s angry and hurt, but he doesn’t want to focus on the feeling that is hiding deep within his chest. At his core, he is scared. He feels it all unravelling and doesn’t know how to stop it. The snowball is rolling down the hill, getting bigger and bigger and he doesn’t know if he is strong enough to stop it, and what’s worse, he is too angry and hurt to try.


	6. Night Shift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Immediately following the previous chapter, Self-Absorbed, Scully works her night shift, thinking about what Mulder said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two posts in two days?? Well I planned these two chapters as a pair, one from Mulder's perspective and the other from Scully's. Most disagreements stem in misunderstanding, and since these two rarely communicate effectively, I have them out of step with each other, but ultimately wanting the same thing, whether they know it or not. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoy. Thanks for the feedback thus far. Stay safe!

“Just go.”

So she did, and she slammed the door for good measure. He wasn’t hearing her, so maybe the harsh slam of the front door would get through his thick skull. 

Punishing him. That was the last thing she was doing, not that he didn’t deserve it, but not everything was about him. Her choice to work night shifts at the hospital had very little to do with him, actually. 

She was starting at the bottom, with men and women a decade younger than she was. She wouldn’t say that he had wasted time at the FBI, not by a long shot, but in terms of her medical career, she had set herself back. She should have been further up the ladder by this point in her life, had she chosen to stay with medicine from the start. 

She was the low man on the totem pole with more to prove than most of her “peers.” 

She understood that Mulder was struggling with all they had learned before they had gone on the run and that he was restlessly hiding away in that house, unable to venture out in the world, but she needed to succeed in her new career. For both of them. Mulder’s complicated and often mysterious finances kept them relatively secure, but Scully was used to working, to supporting herself. She wanted to contribute to their lives not only with her presence, but by earning a living. 

And beyond the financial benefits, she was starting to feel the passion she had once known in med school. The X-files had become her life to an extent that she couldn’t imagine medicine ever being as fulfilling as her time in the field with Mulder, but the more time she spent in the hospital, with men and women full of intelligence and heart, trying to save the lives of sick and injured patients, she remembered why she had wanted to be a doctor in the first place. 

So when they asked her to pick up an extra shift, or when they asked her to switch to an overnight, she always said yes. She would clean bedpans and get coffee, whatever she could to prove that she was reliable and devoted to her profession. 

Even if that meant leaving Mulder at home alone. There was some respite involved in leaving the tensions of the house and his obsessive quest for the sterile quiet of the hospital, but while she enjoyed the retreat, she wasn’t purposely leaving him. Punishing him. She was doing what she needed to do for her job, even if their coordinated sleep was the sacrifice.

As she worked through her shift, Mulder’s voice saying “punishing me” played in her mind, first eliciting anger and disbelief that he could be so clueless and self-absorbed to think that her schedule was designed to hurt him, but soon the voice transformed to uncertainty. Hurt. Loneliness. 

By the time she hung up her lab coat and tossed her mask in the trash, she felt exhausted and defeated. When she slammed the door on her way out of the house, she had seen a stubborn man, singularly focused on himself and his own needs who wanted the woman in his life, his partner, to cater to his every desire. But now? Now she realized he was a man who had lost everything with the exception of what mattered to him most. The woman in his life. His partner. He was a man who was unsure of his footing, wanting to hold her close, but unsure how to make her understand his need. 

Scully pulled into the driveway at their little white house as the sun began to rise in the sky. She walked up onto the porch, quietly opened the door, slipped off her shoes and tiptoed up the stairs. Mulder had left their bedroom door slightly open so she was able to peer through the crack, as she often did when she got home, to see him sleeping, hanging off the edge of his side of the bed leaving hers nearly perfectly made. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully, but she knew he always slept better when her body was close to his. 

She would try to take less night shifts if she could, but she wasn’t willing to sacrifice her growing career either. 

She wasn’t quite tired enough to join him, and she didn’t want to talk about any of it, so she went back downstairs, and walked to the fridge to make them both breakfast.


	7. Shared Ownership

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully shares everything with Mulder, who is her only source of comfort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you have been asking for some light in this fic. I started it as a place to get out some angst, some more angst, and mostly angst, but this thought popped into my head and I added a short, stream of thought drabble of happy comfort while on the run. 
> 
> Thanks to all who have been reading this series. I'll keep posting whenever and idea turns up. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Sometimes it felt like her body belonged just as much to him as it did to her. 

During their waking hours, his hands easily found her lower back, her shoulders, her face, her hair. He stood close. He talked close. He touched.

But it was at night that she noticed their shared ownership the most. No matter the day they had had, no matter what grimy hotel they found themselves in, their nighttime routine remained comfortingly the same.

Sometimes she would stay up later than him, watching TV, or trying to read, trying to settle her mind. Other nights he would pace whatever small space they found themselves in, in an attempt to burn off nervous energy, while she slept soundly, unable to keep her eyes open for one second more. 

But once they were in bed together, their bodies found each other. She would fold into him, her back pressed against his chest, his knees pushing into the backs of her own. His large arm would snake over her hip while she squiggled her own underneath his, along her side, so she could tuck her hand up into the bottom of his boxers, smoothing his hairs in rhythmic patterns. 

Whether asleep or awake, his hands would inevitably pull at the hem of her shirt, and dip into the waistband of her underwear. Large hands traveled up her torso to find her chest, kneading or simply holding. His soft caresses of assurance of their love and partnership would occasionally lead to more, but most often calmly lull her to sleep. 

She would wake to find his fingers drawing circles tucked under her clothes, just below her belly button. She would smile and give whatever part of his body she had contact with a soft squeeze before falling back to sleep. 

She was his, and allowed his hands to sleepily roam, while they both found peace from a life full of hiding and fear. They were alone together, each other’s only source of comfort.

On one particularly cold night in an especially dirty motel, Scully finally gave in to her exhaustion, put down her book, turned off the light, and climbed into bed next to a sleeping Mulder. He let out a sigh of contentment as he pulled her body towards him, sliding his hands across her chilled skin, warming her body and her heart.


End file.
